Denny's Adopts Rock Bands

The diner chain now serves up a little rock on the side.

Standing in a weirdly calm commercial kitchen and looking both bemused and amused, Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara grabs a tray with two Polish sausages. Then he delivers an important message to the YouTube audience: "Make sure you check out DennysAllNighter.com!"

Lazzara, you see, has just scored a coup. Taking Back Sunday is one of about a dozen bands the diner chain giant Denny's is "adopting" through a new and strangely unconventional campaign, Denny's AllNighter.

Adopted bands get a promotional boost, with their pictures, bios, tour dates, and a streaming track featured on the campaign website. They also get to host afterparties at the restaurant. And the best part: They get unlimited Denny's for a month, between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. In exchange, they must visit Denny's three times a month and then mention the visits and post photos on their websites. Any musician who decries this as corporate shilling is, well, accurate, but also probably insanely jealous — particularly when it comes to the gratis Grand Slam breakfasts. That's okay, because the envious among us can also register for possible adoption on the website.

Among the first crop to benefit from Denny's largesse: Saving Abel (Corinth, Mississippi); EndeverafteR (Los Angeles); Take the Crown (Huntington Beach); Foxy Shazam (Cleveland); Forever the Sickest Kids (Dallas); and, a bit odd, a group hailing from a country where Denny's does not exist: London's Switches. (Denny's ought to check whether the band is fulfilling the monthly visit requirement. Those guys are pretty skinny.)

But it gets better: Four bigger-time bands, including Taking Back Sunday, get the "Featured Band" treatment, appearing all over promotional web spots. (In one clip, we learn TBS guitarist Eddie Reyes met his wife at one of the band's shows in Cleveland and romanced her that night by sweeping her away to Denny's. He had chicken fingers; she had breakfast.) Better yet, they actually get to create their own dishes for a "Rock Star Menu" for the restaurant, available nationally; Taking Back Sunday's, the first, appears in August. So what would these four groups have their fans and fellow musicians consume? Some predictions follow.